Max Stockslager, UROP student and Presidential Undergraduate Research Award (PURA) winner presents his recent work in the Forest lab towards a minimally invasive measurement of intracranial pressure as an alternative to possibly dangerous and invasive spinal taps that are currently used by clinicians today.

Congratulations to our collaborator, Reid Harrison, and Intan Technologies, for the success of a $1 Million NIH SBIR through 2017! Intan and the Precision Biosystems Lab will be developing and testing a custom microchip amplifier for patch clamp electrophysiology recording for low-cost, highly multiplexed whole cell recordings in vitro and in vivo!

The National Institutes of Health announced investments totaling $46M to support the goals of the Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative. More than 100 investigators in 15 states and several countries will work to develop new tools and technologies to understand neural circuit function and capture a dynamic view of the brain in action. These new tools and this deeper understanding will ultimately catalyze new treatments and cures for devastating brain disorders and diseases that are estimated by the World Health Organization to affect more than one billion people worldwide.

The Woodruff School’s Dr. Craig Forest is among those who received a $1.5 Million BRAIN Initiative Award. His team will detect subtle disruptions in neuron-to-neuron communications – as occur in brain disorders – using a newly developed robot-guided technique.

“A new microfluidic method for evaluating drugs commonly used for preventing heart attacks has found that while aspirin can prevent dangerous blood clots in some at-risk patients, it may not be effective in all patients with narrowed arteries. The study, which involved 14 human subjects, used a device that simulated blood flowing through narrowed coronary arteries to assess effects of anti-clotting drugs.” [Read More at Georgia Tech Research News]